


Leave Me with My Silence

by Delirious21



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst, Battle, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Megatron dealing with shit and trying to take care of a sparkling, Minor Violence, Team as Family, Transformer Sparklings, minor gore, sparkling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delirious21/pseuds/Delirious21
Summary: It started with a distress signal. Autobots, it seemed, were obligated to check for survivors so Ratchet, Ultra Magnus, and Megatron flew to Earth. What they found cried all the way back to the Lost Light, and after that. . . Well, as Swerve would say, "Buy another drink and I'll tell you what happens next."
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 85





	1. Earth. Again.

How long had it been? Decades, certainly, but Megatron could hardly remember when he last stepped foot on Earth. Such a soft, pliable planet. On his first visit —if you can call it that— he was so consumed with the war, or by the war, that he never took a moment to admire it. He looked out along its snow-capped mountains with refreshed optics. 

Regal birds, upset by the pod’s landing, scattered about, some taking to the sky, soaring in distressed circles. Others whistled warnings and hopped from branch to branch. Flashes of color, constant movement; it reminded him of Cybertron. Odd to find the resemblance of his world in an organic planet. Trees, of course he wasn’t sure what the proper name or species was, clung to the side of the mountains. They sprouted from cracks in the rock, yet flourished from rainwater and melted snow. Wind surged from the valleys so far below, and the world stirred. The gust dissipated and the surrounding woods returned to its grand peace. 

A bout of voices a handful of yards away reminded Megatron of Ultra Magnus and Ratchet, neither of which had stopped trekking up the mountain. He sighed, turned, and followed their path. Gradually, the dirt beneath their pedes turned to stone and the only vegetation left was scrappy bushes that dotted the cliffs. Ahead, Ratchet slipped and cursed something awful, scattering loose rocks in Megatron’s face. The fact that he wasn’t leading was irking enough, but he let out a heavy exvent and kept his misgivings to himself. Magnus seemed more comfortable in this setting anyway, except his hulking frame needed some maneuvering when the path was cinched between two opposing slabs of cliff. 

Even as Megatron backed off, he could hear the wailing chirp of the device they were following. Ratchet had already tried his hand at silencing the damn thing and Megatron debated taking a turn.  _ If  _ he could snag it from Magnus, that is. Either way, they needed the annoying tool to lead them to the crash landed Autobot ship. The distress signal was picked up a few days ago, but it hadn’t been shut off yet and aerial imagery couldn’t form a clear picture because of the looming mountains. 

The beeping sped up, as if it weren’t bad enough, but only a mile or so more and Ultra Magnus stopped and crouched. Megatron and Ratchet joined him, staring out over the precipice at the plateau beneath them. Oblong wooden structures and tents occupied the flattest of the valley. Campfires and racks for meat and furs were surrounded by people, mostly men, hunched over a steaming pot or stripping a hide. The other end of the plateau was sunken in around a half-buried Autobot escape pod. Even more humans were gathered at the foot of the pod, swaying and singing. 

Ratchet leaned back on his haunches. “Well, we found our crash site, now what?”

Ultra Magnus glanced to Megatron and he took the que to resume his role as superior officer. “The possibility of survivors is not. . . high. We need to be certain, though.”

“Interaction?”

Megatron eyed the tribe below them, struggling with a deep-seeded disgust. The birds, the scenery, he could manage, find beauty in, but the  _ humans _ ? Granted, these humans were much different than the ones he was used to, running and screaming and so loud. These were quiet, only small ones running and making much noise. 

“Megatron,” Magnus said, his first warning. 

He returned the squinting glare. “If we can get close enough without making contact, that would be optimal. But if it can’t be avoided. . .”

Ratchet took the lead this time, engaging his holoform and making his way down the slope and towards the far end of the plateau. Megatron was next. They stayed low and hugged the steep cliff face until they reached the back of the pod. Only a few yards away from the humans, they could hear it now, the muffled screaming. 

Ratchet’s fist balled against the side of the pod but he inched closer. Megatron knew those cries, knew them from his days in the mines, when sparklings were torn from the corpses of their carriers, when others were crushed under fallen debris. Ratchet knew it too, so when he glanced around the corner at the mass of humans, it was most likely to affirm. Make sure his ears weren’t playing tricks on him. 

He whipped back around, hissed, “They’ve got a sparkling,” and disappeared. 

Holoforms disengaged, the three mechs returned to their frames. 

“From what I could see, they aren’t hurting it,” Ratchet began, “but it’s sick and hurt, bad. We need to extract it immediately.”

Magnus nodded. He added, “And with no casualties.”

“Agreed. Move slow and enable your translators.” Megatron was the first to stand to his full height. Immediately, he was noticed. For half a moment, he wondered what he looked like, set against the sky, skidding down the side of the cliff. 

The humans did not scream. They barked orders and found their weapons. As if on instinct, the armed encircled the women and the sparkling they surrounded. Arms held taught, legs spread, knees bent. Megatron would laugh if not for the sincerity of the situation. He straightened when he made it to flat land and waited for Ratchet and Magnus. 

Ratchet landed next to him with a thud. For a second, he expected the medic to fall on his ass. He teatered but regained his balance. Only once Ultra Magnus was down too did Megatron slowly, excruciatingly so, approach the humans. They tensed and tracked his movements, but didn’t attack. The low cry of the sparkling got louder and the women turned to shush it, to no avail. 

One man stepped out from the others, paint marking his forehead and arms. In an ancient Japanese dialect, he asked, “Do you come to fight?”

Megatron responded, thanks to his translator, in the same language. “No. We have no intentions of harming you or your people.”

The man, perhaps the chief, didn’t lower his weapon. “You come for the young, then.”

“Yes.” 

The chief nodded, serene, and commanded the others to part, revealing the sparkling in a heap of bright cloths and furs, propped up against a rolled animal skin. It was small by normal Cybertronian standards, just barely as big as the chief. 

Megatron motioned for Ratchet. “This is my doctor.”

One of the women from the group, long black hair tied at her shoulders, called, “He will not harm her?”

Ratchet bowed his helm and extended his servos, open, palm up. “I promise I won’t. But she needs attention and fast.” The human females relented and allowed enough space for Ratchet to kneel and work. 

Megatron stood and watched, not speaking when Ultra Magnus came and stood with him, as if in early vigil. If the sparkling were to die. . . Even Megatron could not bear the destruction of sparklings. A mech’s screams and a child’s were two very different sounds, evoked different raw emotions. One hate, one grief. Children should never die. Their sparks should be cultured and bright and protected. 

Yet, during war they were reduced to collateral damage, as it seems they always were. Even humans knew that, felt that, ignored it. But this group of small, angry indigenous peoples, here they were swaddling the sparkling, desperately trying to feed it, nurture it. After all, species doesn’t matter, not when instinct acts; leopard harboring fawn, because in the end, a child’s scream is inseparable from anything but an instinctive call to action. 

The chief returned his attention to Megatron. He waved an arm and walked over to the other side of the pod, the side not buried in dirt and rock. Megatron glanced back at the group before following. The man didn’t hesitate to step through the massive crack in the side. Megatron, however, took pause. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fit, he’d fit fine; but did he want to find whoever the sparkling had been traveling with? What if they were infected and, even in death, contagious? But, what if they were alive?

Dead. They were very, very dead. Megatron squatted next to the corpses of two mechs, though they reminded him of Caminus-born bots in frame. He didn’t dwell on the issue of pronouns for long. One of them clutched a small device, the distress signal, and he reached over to grab it. He switched it off, but not before his digits met the dead bot’s and roughly six hundred milliamps of electricity knocked him on his ass. His helm smacked against an unhinged panel and the whole pod jolted. Thankfully the human wasn’t there to witness it, but two seconds later and Magnus was at the opening, calling for him. 

Megatron grumbled something about being fine as he rubbed his wrist. He thought they were dead. Another check of sparks confirmed that they were, but that much power. . . He would have to get scanned later to make sure he hadn’t been infected. 


	2. Chaos and Crying

When he re-emerged, Ratchet was holding the sparkling, cradling it against his chassis and feeding it distilled energon from a tube. The humans, especially the women, crowded around him, eager to learn, if not see the nurturing methods of a giant metal being. The sparkling clung to the edges of Ratchet’s frame. Tube empty, it spat out the line and resumed its wailing. 

“Survivors?” Ultra Magnus asked, peeling both their attentions away from Ratchet and the young bot. Megatron shook his helm and crossed his arms. “I see. Well, I’ve already called ahead to let Rodimus know we’ll be returning soon with a plus one.”

Megatron eyed the way Ratchet accepted an offering of blankets and furs to swaddle the sparkling in. One woman placed a handmade doll in his palm, and the kid latched onto it, hugging it to its tiny chest, wails turning into whimpers. 

“We don’t have the proper accomodations for a sparkling,” he finally said. 

“The humans have better?”

And that was it, matter settled. As if there would ever have been any real discussion about it. This was no question of morals, and if it were, even war-time Megatron would refuse to leave the sparkling in the care of the humans. Granted, he’d have different reasons. 

Ratchet separated from the crowd, dipped his helm to the chief, and returned to his allies. “We’re good to go. She’s clear of any infectious and contagious diseases, but I need the rest of my tools. The ones I left behind. I suggest we walk fast.”

Megatron and Ultra Magnus agreed. They made quick work of their departure, and this time Megatron lead. Behind him, the sparkling gurgled and cried, and he almost wished to replace its noises with the incessant beeping of the tracker they used earlier. Ratchet couldn’t shut this up either, apparently. 

Crowded into the pod, Megatron set course for the Lost Light and prepared to take off while Magnus and Ratchet fussed over the sparkling. Well, Ultra Magnus hovered anxiously and Ratchet cursed him and the baby in between shushing them. After a few more minutes of screaming, Megatron shot a glare over his shoulder. He didn’t mean to, but his energy field lashed out in annoyance. The sparkling’s reaction was less than pleasant. He was now on Ratchet’s curse list. 

The little grey mass writhed and scrambled, trying to tear free from Ratchet’s grasp. It was as lively as the damn thing had been so far. Megatron faced forward again, just in time to watch vivid blues and greens blur into one indistinguishable mass, and then into just another planet. A few more minutes and the chaos embodied by the Lost Light would be swallowing them whole, a dreaded reunion for any sane mech. Megatron dragged a servo down his face, exhausted and weary. Weary of the after-shocks tingling his digits, weary of the screaming infant, weary of every damn thing. He called it old age, Ravage called it giving up. 

As expected, the ship was in an absolute frenzy. It was only natural for Rodimus to have announced over the intercom that a sparkling was coming. Mech couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Ever. 

Ultra Magnus and Megatron attempted to escort Ratchet to the medibay, enforcer in the front, clearing a path, and ex-warlord in the back, watching the sides. Surprisingly, no one made a grab for the sparkling, they just leaned in, chests against Megatron’s barricading arms, trying to get a look. Tailgate tried to climb him. The medibay never seemed so far away. 

And then they were locked in the resolute quiet of the medibay, catching their breaths and steeling their nerves. They were all too damn old for this, let alone all of it to be caused by a sparkling. Magnus stood by the door, guarding it.

Ratchet placed the hiccup-sobbing sparkling on a medical berth and set to work. First Aid, who had naturally been hiding in his office, came out and helped as much as Ratchet let him. Megatron hovered near by, arms crossed as he feigned disinterest. He stared at a dusty box of parts in the corner, but his optics slid to the sparkling. Twice he caught himself doing it. The second time he abandoned the box of parts and approached the flurry of servos and energon and flailing limbs. Ratchet shot him a glare but otherwise worked around him, too consumed with repairing the bitlet. 

Amazing, really, how such a tiny frame could take so much damage. Megatron subconsciously rested a servo on the berth as he leaned forward in full observation mode. The sparkling, optics feverish, fixated on him, dull blues dilated and wild. It hiccupped and resumed its crying when Ratchet pinned down its arm and removed a rather ghastly shard of glass from the misshapen forearm. Untapped energon spread from the wound to the berth but First Aid cleaned it up immediately. 

Megatron, mesmerized by the medics’ quick, seamless motions, only half-realized he said, “Why not induce stasis?” When he noticed the softness in his voice, he cleared it and added, “This is giving me a headache.”

“No one asked you to be here,” Ratchet snapped. He was fixing an arm into a splint and cast. The sparkling yanked and twisted but his grip was firm and steadying. 

First Aid leaned close to mutter, “Sparkling’s too weak. We put her in stasis, chances are she won’t wake up.”

Megatron nodded, if not in understanding, in acknowledgement of the young medic. Ratchet stepped away from the berth for a minute to prepare an energon cocktail heavy in nutrients and vitamins. The sparkling rolled over, dangerously close to the edge, and Megatron, without thinking, nudged it back to the middle of the berth where it was safe. The crying eased up instantly and the bitlet wrapped its unimaginably small servo around the end of his digit. 

It was comical, how the berth was twenty sizes too big and the little thing seemed nothing more than a speck of dust on its surface. Megatron focused on that when he pried his digit free from the infant’s. It stared, or he imagined, glared at him, and that was the end of the brief quiet. The screaming returned, but this time Megatron retreated to stand by Ultra Magnus. 

“Who will it go to?” Megatron asked. 

“She.”

“She. From Caminus?”

“Ratchet believes so.” Magnus paused. “Chromedome and Rewind would appreciate a child.”

Megatron hummed, not agreeing, not disagreeing. 

The medibay door clicked and opened and in strut Rodimus. He wanted to see the sparkling, hold it, ask a thousand questions about it, and Ratchet responded with waving fists and spats of cursing. The sparkling cried. 

“Aren’t the repairs done?” Rodimus asked, leaning over First Aid’s shoulder to get a peak. “Give it some food or a toy or something.”

“Does it look like I have any goddamn toys?” Ratchet snapped. 

“Give it a wrench. Babies like hard stuff, right?”

It occurred to Megatron that Rodimus had never seen a sparkling. Not in the flesh. He wasn’t sure if the twist of his spark was grief or self-hatred, but he despised it either way. Rodimus, finally accepting defeat, slunk over to Magnus and him. 

“So,” he said, “who gets it?”

Under his breath, Megatron corrected him. “Her,” he muttered. 

Ultra Magnus sighed. The low, heavy exvent of a sleep deprived, aching frame. “Perhaps we should return her to Cybertron. There she would be paired with a couple and not be in harm's way.”

“We have couples here,” Rodimus objected. They shared a moment of silence, long, tired looks reminding each other of their journey so far. How many dead? How many uncontrollable mechs lumbered around the ship, tracking mayhem in their treads? How many hazards to such a vulnerable being. . . Countless.

“We’ve come so far,” the ex-Prime tried. “I know we’re close to the Knights. We have to be. If we turn around now. . .”

Magnus rubbed his chin, thinking. “No one said we would redirect the entire ship. A single pod and escort would suffice.”

“Who?”

Ratchet interrupted, or rather, the wailing sparkling in his arms did the interrupting. He cradled her carefully, but held her out for Rodimus to take. “Here, you wanted to hold her so damn bad,” he grumbled. 

Megatron and Magnus both froze in panic when Rodimus accepted the bundle. Ratchet wasn’t going to leave him at that, was he? Of course he didn’t. Ratchet, optics squinting, showed Rodimus how to support the helm and legs, how to rock her in his arms. Rodimus looked absolutely terrified, it was humbling on him.


	3. Connection

The bitlet cried still. Ratchet left to keep mixing energon and Rodimus started to panic. He blindly thrust the sparkling away from his body, and Magnus took a wary step back, so Megatron was left to relieve him of the wailing kid. Lucky him. Just as inexperienced as Rodimus, he struggled for a moment to position his arms right, but the bitlet didn’t seem to care. Her crying dropped a level and quickly became nothing more than a whimper. She nuzzled her crested helm against Megatron’s chassis, and the sensation instilled such alarming  _ peace  _ that Megatron nearly dropped her. 

Her helm fit into the crook of his elbow when she leaned back, sniffling. Streaks of coolant ran down her round face and the faint glow of her blue optics gave the tears a fantastical tint, as if they too were glowing. 

“Megatron?” It was Rodimus, voice incredulous and optics as wide as Magnus’. 

He looked up, just as startled as them, if not more. 

“Why you?” It wasn’t quite a pout, but not a full sincere query either. 

Ratchet, with a slight skip to his step, returned to their little group. “How in the pits did you get her to stop cryi. . .” His mouth set in a tight line at the sight he was met with. “What did you do.” Borderline accusatory, but manageable.

Megatron dipped his helm a touch. “I’m not sure,” he said. 

Ultra Magnus, expression turning cross, asked, “Did you interact with the other. . . passengers of the pod?”

The sparkling was nodding off, fists unfurling and jaw going slack. How long had it been since she slept soundly?

“Yes.” He should have said something earlier. It certainly looked as if he were withholding information now, and thin trust was exactly what he needed. As if his very face and very name didn’t create enough tension. 

Ratchet was already scanning him. Once, twice. On the third time, Megatron shifted on his pedes, careful not to disturb the blissfully silent life in his arms. 

“Megatron,” he finally said, “you touched the carrier.”

Rodimus was clearly restraining from reaching over and tickling the bitlet. “How do you know that?” he asked, eyeing her. 

“Code.” When three blank optics stared back, he pinched the bridge of his nose and tried again. “Sparklings are helpless without their carrier or sire,” he started. “Said creators, in some cases, develop a string of code that manifests in the spark. The code itself can only be passed from one mech to another if the original carrier is dead.”

“It’s transmitted by touch?” Ultra Magnus deadpanned. 

“Unfortunately for us, yes. It disregards consent and, essentially, passes the responsibility on to whoever holds the code. It’s a last ditch effort, an obscure way of securing their sparkling is never left alone.”

Megatron felt invaded, dirty, and infected with foreign code he couldn’t even notice. 

Ratchet frowned at him and kept going. Because of course there was more. “Whether you consciously realize it or not, the encoded signature is powerful and awakens instinctive protocols. Nurture, protect, all that. The change is something only a sparkling can notice, and this femmeling has been separated from that living form of code for far too long, so I imagine it is desperate for contact.”

“What you’re saying is. . ?”

“What I’m saying is, whether we like it or not, the sparkling is attached to Megatron.”

Megatron’s tanks had been twisting since Ratchet first mentioned ingrained code. Now, voice bitter and barely hiding disgust, he snapped, “Remove it.”

Ratchet shot him a you’re-a-world-class-dumbass glare. “It can’t and won’t be removed until you die.”

Ultra Magnus held up his servos, clearly confused. “Now, wait a minute. Please. I am as uncomfortable with this idea as the rest of you, but we should be considering what is best for the sparkling. If we separate her from Megatron, or the other way around, what will happen?”

“She’ll deteriorate, wilt mentally. Even if her body is well-nurtured, she’s developed a dependence on the code, since it is all that is left of her creators.” 

“So we send them back to Cybertron,” Rodimus said. 

Megatron was quick to interject. “No. Do you have any idea how dangerous it would be for the bitlet? To be on a planet of veterans who are all in line to kill me? If they think she’s mine by creation. . .” The other mechs avoided his optics. 

“She stays then,” Rodimus said. “She stays, you stay, and if anything happens to her, I will be at the front of that line,” he growled. There was no question in his tone, only surefire, burning passion. Budding fury. 

“Very well.” Ultra Magnus cast a sideways glance to Megatron. “We should arrange to inform the crew immediately.”

“Oh, yeah, they’ll be real happy about this,” Rodimus muttered. 

With as disappointed and furious as the crew were, Megatron was surprised no one kicked down the medibay and demanded he hand over the sparkling. According to Magnus, most mechs resigned themselves to fuming and moping at Swerve’s. Which left him, a bitlet, and a medic who hated him to the core. Ratchet, for what it’s worth, addressed him in a cool, professional tone, with slight disinterest, and overwhelming focus on treatment details. 

Megatron fought the idea of internal code and rebuked the loose information he was given about his condition even as he listened to Ratchet. Thankfully, the sparkling was somewhere in an incubator-turned-crib and still hadn’t woken up. First Aid was on watch duty at the moment. 

Was this his penance, the price he had to pay for every life he’d taken? No matter how he worded it or twisted it in his processor, Megatron remained unsettled and distressed. Although he questioned his ability to raise a child, his tanks churned more at the thought of an irrefutable connection. The bitlet was a vulnerability now, a small, helpless link directly to Megatron. 

Ratchet was staring at him, waiting for something. He drug himself up from the trenches of his mind and folded his servos in his lap.

“Yes?” he asked, voice even. 

Ratchet scoffed. “Glad you were listening,” he gruffed. He leaned on his cluttered desk and slid a datapad across the surface. “Instructions for taking care of the sparkling. At this stage of development, that only really means feeding her and providing social interaction.  _ Healthy  _ social interaction. I swear, if I find out you took her to Swerve’s. . .” He didn’t need to say more, Megatron got the picture. “You will have to bring her in for checkups. For the first week, it’ll be once a day. After that, we’ll see.”

Terrified wasn’t quite the word. Sickened, maybe. Megatron scanned over the document, not paying much attention to the details. 

“Right now, her systems are stable enough I don’t need to attach her to a drip, and she’s strong enough to move. I’ve got a couple of rations mixed and good to go, I’ll send you off with them.” He paused. “You know, her wounds weren’t as bad as I thought.”

Megatron frowned. “Ah, the medic was wrong,” he muttered, still skimming.

“Not wrong.”

He set the datapad down. “Then what?” This was the longest conversation he could remember having with Ratchet that had no bitter, enraged undertones or clipped voices. 

Ratchet stood and stretched. He rolled his wrists and rubbed sore joints. “You saw the crash,” he said. 

“A malfunctioned pod.” He’d seen the massacre, the gaping mouths and crushed frames. Without any evidence, he would stick with the crash story.

“Bullshit.” Ratchet took something out of his desk and tossed it in Megatron’s lap. A chunk of metal, no larger than the datapad. It was smooth and curved and the hinges on the side looked like they’d been ripped off their bases. A mouthplate. Scorched into the metal were three words Megatron wished he could forget. 

Find. Kill. Destroy. 

“Your pets killed them. For fun, maybe, I don’t know and I don’t want to,” Ratchet said. “But that sparkling was pried from the wreckage and covered in her carrier’s energon.”

Because of you. Megatron could practically hear the words in Ratchet’s voice. He set his jaw and stood as well. “As ruthless as he is, Tarn would never leave a sparkling.” 

“Alive.”

He wanted to believe Ratchet was wrong, but he lost his certainty when he revoked Decepticonism and turned away his followers. He knew what Tarn was capable of, he trained him, for pit’s sake. But that meant nothing now. 

“Take the sparkling,” Ratchet grumbled. 

“She can’t stay?”

“Take her. I’ll have First Aid drop the energon off at the end of his shift.” Dismissal. It was unmistakable, and Megatron didn’t bother fighting it. 


	4. Nightmares

It wasn’t until Megatron was standing in his meager room that he realized he didn’t have anywhere to keep the sparkling. A menial issue, really, except he absolutely detested the idea of her in his berth. He glanced at the slab of metal and snorted to himself. His berth. Odd how his life on the Lost Light had gotten so mundane and routine that he automatically laid claim to material things, as if he had the right to them. He had the right to nothing but death; as much was made clear by his trial. 

The sparkling wriggled in his hold but he ignored her. Part of him, the old analytical warlord, knew that Ratchet and the others were playing at something. No mech in their right mind would leave him alone with a sparkling. He almost doubted that the thing in his arms was real; maybe a mock or a doll. That, inofitself, was an absurd idea. He knew life intimately, knew the warm press of an animated being’s frame, knew the slow and raspy vents, knew the touch of a flaring EM field against his. It was all haltingly familiar, and something one would assume of Optimus Prime, not Megatron. Yet, to understand death is to understand life. There is no separating the two. 

Megatron set the sparkling on the berth. She whined and clenched her grey fists in her sleep. He was exhausted, a feeling that had been sinking into his frame since he arrived on the Lost Light, nearly a year ago. Some days, the defeat culminated and piled on top of him until there was nothing left to do but crawl. Clutch desperately at any semblance of composure and regality until he could return to this room and crumble and berate himself for crumbling. The sparkling rolled onto her chubby stomach as her optics cycled on. She struggled to lift her helm and get her arms underneath her and she pouted her frustration when her helm thunked against the berth. So weak. 

He was too tired, too worn and frayed to do much more than sigh. He considered, only for a moment, what it might be like to cut out your own spark. The little one was reaching for him, extending its frail silver arms and whimpering. Megatron turned off the lights and lumbered to the berth. He didn’t bother with graceful, more or less dropping onto the unforgiving slab with just enough care so as not to flatten the sparkling. Thankfully there was no give in the “mattress,” and the sparkling stayed a few feet away from him. He shifted briefly, folding an arm under his helm, already feeling the ache of a stressed frame. In the morning, he would relish the bite in his nerves from the unforgiving slab of metal. It kept him alert when everything else was blurry. 

The sparkling cooed and rolled around, getting closer and closer to Megatron. He nudged her back against the wall and pinned her down with a servo. Hopefully it’d keep her in place. 

Megatron jolted, waking himself up. He sighed and kept his optics shut. Every night he woke with tremors and sweats, the recurring nightmare on repeat in his mind. If he were to open his optics, surely he’d be met with an audience, jeering and sneering, and his humiliation would, not kill him, but leave a blister on his spark. Every night a new blister, until one night he imagined he’d pop and that would be the end of it. 

The antagonists, if you could call them that, were blue flowers, such small, delicate things, yet they invoked such terror. In the dreams they consumed him but there was no pain. He wanted it to hurt. They bloomed from his gaping mouth, irises swaying with the intense force of their sprouting, like a virus taking hold of its victim. Ironic, in a way, that these beautiful, lively blossoms were going to be the last thing he saw, blue petals swamping his vision, and just as he’s about to suffocate, he wakes. Every night. The flowers never let him die. Maybe that was the most terrifying part. 

He flexed his digits, stretching out the leftover shakes. Something shifted against his chassis and he opened his optics to stare down at the infant curled against him. He wondered when she moved and why he didn’t wake up then. His reflexes were dulling, he thought, just like the rest of him. Floundering, sinking, but he couldn’t escape the quicksand swamping his processor, his spark. 

Megatron swallowed regret and disgust and then there was a tiny servo on his cheek and he didn’t  _ have  _ to fight the overwhelming emotions. They were suppressed by the innocence and dependence in sparkling blue optics. Or maybe it had to do with the code infecting his chassis. Was it possible his spark was reacting to the sparkling’s? He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, being practically bonded to a weak little mound of colorless and malnourished metal. But, in the end, was he so different?

The sparkling snuggled closer but, in slight repulsion at himself, Megatron pushed her away. He folded one arm in front of his chassis and used the other to more effectively pin her to the opposite side of the berth. 

A familiar presence at the foot of the berth woke Megatron. He didn’t bother with weapons, although he tensed for a moment when he opened his optics and saw gleaming red orbs hovering in the darkness. 

Ravage tilted his helm, not in submission or curiosity, but something else. Something Megatron could never quite put his finger on. Odd, how Soundwave’s old symbiote had evolved into its own mech, capable of diverse and wonderfully complex thoughts. The transition happened millenia ago, yet Megatron was still amazed by it. 

“You’re going soft,” the mech rumbled. 

Megatron grunted indignation when he realized the sparkling had managed to sneak back to him during the night. “She moved,” he said, voice still groggy. 

Ravage hummed and jumped down from the berth. “Heard rumors about a sparkling. I didn’t think you’d actually have it.” He sat on his haunches by the door, an old habit. “Then again, it’s just like you to take in an abandoned, helpless thing.”

“And raise it to kill,” Megatron added. He thought of all the mechs, the most loyal Decepticons, who he pulled from gutters and dragged from poverty. Perhaps, if he’d never been so frivolously ambitious, he could have used them for more than war and desolation. Rebuilding the slums, helping other desperate bots, providing food for those without. He snorted to himself. “Those days are over. How many times must I remind you?”

He started to sit up, but the sparkling clung to his chassis with her good arm. Feigning more annoyance than he felt, Megatron pried her off of him and slipped off the berth. She broke into hysterics the second he stopped touching her. 

Ravage glanced from warlord to infant and back, a grimace twisting his maw. “Once was enough,” he said, and Megatron wasn’t sure whether he was talking about their disagreement or the war, or hell, even the sparkling. The sleek black mech said nothing else but remained by the door, sitting upright as if awaiting orders. 

Megatron, hands on his hips, turned and glared at the wailing sparkling. How long would it take for her to lose her voice, he wondered. He stood there for another minute, and she didn’t stop. Coolant streaked her chubby silver face and as she flailed, it was smeared all over the berth. 

From his corner, Ravage said, “Disgusting,” then returned to his silence. 

Reluctantly, Megatron picked up the sparkling, using just the edges of his digits. He held her out in front of him and as she sniffled, her wide blue optics focused on his face. Her pouting lips twitched at the corners and for a moment he was mortified that she was going to purge her tanks. Instead of dropping her and bolting a safe distance away, as impulse suggested, he sighed and held her against his shoulder. She whimpered still, but as Megatron walked to the wash racks to retrieve a towel, she hushed a bit and nuzzled her face into his taut neck cables. Smearing coolant against him. 

It didn’t take long to wipe up the fluids, thankfully, and the only challenging part was doing it all with one servo while the other held the sparkling. Megatron sat on the clean berth and started to wipe himself off, and then the sparkling. He pretended to not notice Ravage staring at him as he carefully dabbed the towel around the bitlet’s optics. The metal there was especially soft and sensitive, according to Ratchet’s datapad. 

He just got her to shut up, and he was not about to spend the rest of his morning with screams echoing in his audials. He’d spent enough mornings like that. Ravage, too, seemed to appreciate the quiet. 

Just outside Megatron’s door, there was a box of specially formulated energon, just like Ratchet said. Feeding it to the sparkling was a different story. No one warned him how messy it would be, or that the little fragger would try and grab the whole energon cube. Megatron never thought he’d see a messier eater than Helex. Cranial fluid everywhere. He suppressed a wince at the memories. 

Although it was still early, Megatron was fairly certain that Ratchet would be lurking around the medibay. The sparkling clicked its glossa against its undeveloped —strangely sharp— dentae and babbled while he thought. He offered her a glance and considered the distance from his room to the medibay. It was odd to see a completely colorless bot, but this small bundle was plain grey, a close tint to silver, and her growing frame was square in all the right places —all the places Megatron was. She would be a warrior class, no doubt, and Megatron thought back to the sight of her parents, crushed under rubble. He wondered which she looked more like, her sire or her carrier. 

Ravage stood and stretched. “Someone’s coming,” he said. He sniffed the air again and curled his lips back at the scent. “Ultra Magnus.”

Not a minute later, someone knocked on the door. Megatron was slow to open it and then only a crack. Sure enough, Magnus waited on the other side. Could always trust a mech’s senses.

“What do you want,” Megatron grumbled. He tested bitterness but the sparkling giggled in his arms and waved her servos. Any bitterness in his voice turned weary. “Are you hear to take this. . . thing?”

Ultra Magnus’s optics sunk. “No,” he admitted. “Although I admit. . . Have you taken her to Ratchet yet?”

“No.” The bitlet was busy tugging on the door, trying to get a better look at Magnus. Megatron kept the door where it was, with her out of sight. 

“Well then, perhaps I should join you,” Magnus said. 

Escort, not join. Megatron set his lips in a tight line and relented. After all, he was just a prisoner, albeit a privileged one. When he opened the door the rest of the way and Magnus saw the sparkling, and vice versa, he lit up. As much as the ex-enforced tried to hide it, he absolutely cherished the little thing. And who was Megatron to blame him? Sparklings were to be adored; some mechs would go as far to say that they bring the best out of a bot.


	5. At the Bar

Ratchet was no less scathing than the day before, and exhaustion dragged on his faceplates while he examined the sparkling. Megatron and Ultra Magnus stood off to the side, watching in pensive quiet. The air was thick, heavy with unspoken words and questions and anger that was, at this point, unavoidable. Ratchet and Ambulon worked quickly, and the kid cried, but not in pain, so they didn’t stop. She kept her optics strained on Megatron even when he ignored her. 

Next to him, Magnus shifted from pede to pede. “Some of the crew would like to meet her,” he started. “I’ve approved a list, short one, if you are up to it.”

“A meet and greet for a mindless lump of metal,” Megatron muttered, “sounds grand.”

“The situation is. . . odd, yes, but only a handful of mechs on this ship have ever even  _ seen  _ a sparkling. Rodimus is calling it a moral booster.”

“No.” If he was going to be stuck with a sparkling, he wasn’t about to go parade around the ship with it. He already drew enough unwanted attention to himself. 

Ultra Magnus sighed. “Very well. I will see you on the bridge in an hour, then.”

Of course he was expected to work. Medical leave didn’t apply to unwitting adoption, apparently. 

Working while caring for a sparkling turned out to be a bigger pain in the ass than trying to “control” Overlord. The crying, the constant feeding, the loud gurgling, the spit, the tears. The biting. Primus, the  _ biting _ . Ratchet said it was because her dentae were still growing and she needed to strengthen them. Even when Megatron resigned to his office and plopped her on his lap while he worked, she started gnawing on the plating on his knees! But he couldn’t yell, it’d scare her, and he couldn’t put her down; she’d crawl underfoot. Which meant a very long, very excruciating day. Megatron regarded the sparkling with renewed agitation.

It didn’t help that everyone on the bridge was transfixed by her; Rung came in for a meeting with Magnus and stayed an extra half hour to make faces and noises at the sparkling. Megatron tried not to notice those minutes when she was passed from lap to lap and his was left cold. He buried the emptiness under a fervor to finish filing at least one datapad. 

And then, bliss, sweet, silent, bliss. The bridge emptied out at the end of the shift and Megatron let his shoulders droop. He leaned back in his chair and watched the sparkling, asleep in his lap, good servo clutching his hip and the casted arm stretched out over his thigh. She was warm, and soft, her small frame conforming to the less forgiving edges of his. And yet she seemed to fit so perfectly that he couldn’t imagine what it would be like without her there. 

He rubbed his optics and sighed. Damn code. Part of him wished he’d never gone into the crashed ship, never been shocked, never had this drooling bundle dropped in his lap. Life was a cruel game. 

Why not play along?

Against Ratchet’s misgivings, Megatron decided to take the sparkling to Swerve’s. It was foolish, without a doubt, but if the crew wanted to see her, who was he to stop them? The sparkling woke up when he stood and scooped her into his arms. He was getting better at that, the smooth sweeping motion. He could hardly believe it’d only been one day. Not even. 

Just as they were about to head out, Ultra Magnus came into Megatron’s office. The blue enforcer glanced from the bitlet snuggled in his arms to his ever guarded face. 

“Are you going back to your room?”

“Not exactly.”

Magnus arched a brow at him. “Then where  _ exactly  _ were you going?”

He forced his way passed the enforcer and out of his own office. “What does it matter? Wherever I go I have to bring this,” he motioned furiously to the chirping sparkling. 

Of course the SIC followed him into the hall. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

“Don’t I?”

“But you are conne—”

“I know,” Megatron snapped. He sighed and stopped walking to face Magnus. “What do you want? You’re looming over me worse than when I first came on board, when you  _ didn’t  _ trust me.”

Magnus blinked, as if in a stupor. The sparkling waved her good arm at him and cooed, and he snapped out of it enough to smile at her. Megatron balked at the sight, but she babbled happily. Magnus offered a digit up to the little thing and she appreciatively curled around it, nibbling on the end. 

“If she is to stay on the Lost Light,” he started, “I would like to be a key role model. After all, who else will she learn the Autobot code from?”

“That’s your justification?” Megatron scoffed at the larger mech. “Morals?”

“Would you rather I admit a weakness for sparklings?”

By the way he was letting her gnaw on his digit, Megatron would guess that was true. It was still shocking to think of Ultra Magnus or Minimus Ambus with a sparkling. He could hardly stand a cluttered desk, for Pit’s sake!

Megatron looked him up and down, thinking. Finally, he asked, “Would you like to join us at Swerve’s?”

“You can’t take a baby to a bar!”

“Even if it’s to meet the crew?”

Magnus thought for a moment before he relented. “I suppose an exception can be made. I will accompany you so as to make sure she isn’t exposed to any harmful substances.”

Megatron grunted something incoherent and they made their way to the bar. By the time they actually reached the doors, they were already being trailed by a group of curious mechs. Even Ten was enamored the second he laid optics on her. While Megatron went inside and found an open booth, Magnus lingered to talk to the graffitied guard. 

The booth was swarmed in seconds. He didn’t know who, since it was just a mass of limbs and colors, but someone was trying to climb over the table, and Megatron caged the now crying sparkling with his arms, panic bubbling in his throat. He snarled at those closest to get back, but only a few blobs listened. Only when Ultra Magnus forced his way through the cluster did they start to break up. 

As commanding as ever, he boomed, “If you want to see the sparkling, make a line and wait. And so help me if you scare her. . .”

Megatron was, not for the first time, grateful for Magnus’ presence. Because of that, it was only slightly awkward when the enforcer wedged himself into the booth and they sat side by side, crammed into the tiny space with a sniffling sparkling. 

Swerve, having fought his way to the front of the forming line under the grounds of “my bar, me first,” stood as close as he risked and leaned forward for a good look of the sparkling. His visor flashed and he immediately started making funny faces. She stared at him and smacked her servo in a makeshift clap against Megatron’s chassis, since her other arm was still bound in a cast. 

The red and white minibot caught sight of the cast and perked up even more. “Hey,” he said, “I’ll be right back!” He bolted off and Kup, second in line, tapped his pede while they waited. Swerve returned weilding a fistful of different colored markers. He splayed them out over the table, picked out a bright red one, and sidled up close to Megatron. 

“Can I sign it?” he asked, already uncapping the marker. “Please? Maybe she’ll learn our names easier if they’re on her arm.”

Megatron snorted as he sat the sparkling up in his lap, her unadorned back pressed against his abdomen. “Go ahead.” 

Oddly, his spark was warmed as the night went on and her tiny cast was covered in marker, barely any of it legible, and she babbled constantly. Almost like she was trying to hold her own conversations when Kup talked about the last sparkling he’d seen or when Nautica explained how to spell “Autobot” or when Rewind drew a smiley face near her elbow. Neither Megatron nor Magnus drank anything harder than a spritzer, and together they silently absorbed it all. The low lights, the sparkling optics and ear-to-ear smiles, and a sense of community both quietly craved. 

Cyclonus sang a song in old Cybertronian for the sparkling, albeit a short one when everyone started bitching about it. Tailgate drew her a picture on a napkin of him and his partner. Ten gave her a toy model of the Lost Light, and Brainstorm  _ tried  _ to give her a chew toy, but it turned into a taser, so that was a no-go. Rung sat with Megatron and Magnus and talked for hours, about sparklings and Cybertron, filling her in on everything she missed. Megatron could hardly keep track of who all came up and who did what, but after a few hours, Whirl slunk over. 

The sparkling was sound asleep, curled against Megatron’s arm, and she didn’t stir when he tensed. Next to him, Ultra Magnus did the same. Whirl held up one of Tailgate’s favored mini-umbrellas and twirled it a couple of times. 

“Perfect size for her,” he said. His optic squinted in admiration or mirth, and he set it on the table, next to her pile of gifts. Face hardening, he snapped, “Don’t tell her it was from me,” and disappeared into the throng of patrons. 

Megatron didn’t hold back his laughter that time. All night, he’d been so uptight and waiting for the worst, but the worst thing that happened was her waking up screaming and hungry from her nap because he moved. 


	6. Disrupted Nights

Ultra Magnus insisted that, because Megatron drank half a spritzer, he walk him home. Megatron’s arms were full of sparkling, and Magnus cradled all her gifts. She proved awfully popular among the crew, and only a handful of mechs were bitter enough to ignore her arrival. The trio headed back to their rooms were all still tingling, maybe with anxiety or excitement, who could really tell? 

“Have you thought of naming her?” Magnus asked as they walked. 

Megatron sent him a half-hearted scowl. “Why should I?”

“Well you are—”

“Nothing.” He sighed. “Nothing but a code-carrier.”

The ex-enforcer hummed. Ignoring him, he said, “Something to honor the humans who cared for her would be nice. . .”

Megatron snorted. “Took care of her.”

“They did what they could.” Magnus adjusted his hold on the mound of impromptu gifts. “It is possible that, because of their efforts, she was kept alive long enough for us to intervene.”

The odd little group stopped in front of room 113. Awkward silence ensued. Megatron didn’t open the door, but Ultra Magnus waited anyway. The sparkling twitched in her sleep.

“Shizu,” Magnus said. 

Megatron didn’t mind the delay. He wasn’t exactly keen to throwing open his door and inviting the big bot in. “What?” A cursory glance to the bitlet ensured him that she was fine. 

“Shizu. According to human databases, it means silent.”

“Silent.” He relented and opened his door. “If that is what you want to call her, I don’t care. But I am not naming her.”

Magnus shouldered his way past the door, apparently too tired to give a shit. “Well,” he said, “I will inform the crew that I named her.” He dropped her gifts on the desk next to the door. “And that you had nothing to do with it.”

Was this sarcasm? It sounded. . . odd, coming from Magnus. Even so, Megatron appreciated the promise behind it. 

Magnus returned to the hall and gave a curt nod. “See you in the morning.”

The flowers twined in his digits as the distant screeching grew louder, as if the commander of the flowers was approaching. The beast behind his nightmares, he thought, was finally going to end it. End him.

Megatron jolted awake, wrenched from his rocky sleep and back into the dim, muggy suite. He panted for a moment, hunched over as his processor tried to draw lines in the sand between reality and dream. When he’d expelled the worst of the cold sweats, he rolled over and faced the sparkling. She beat her useless fists against his heaving chest and wailed as if she’d lost an arm. Tears beaded in the corners of her optics and slipped down her round cheeks in streams. For a while, Megatron stared and let her cry. 

Ravage, roused by her screams, leapt onto the berth. He nudged her with his muzzle and she hiccupped then kept sobbing. “Aren’t you going to stop it?” he growled, voice groggy.

Megatron blinked. He took a minute longer to process what it was he was supposed to do with this bawling lump on his berth. Spark aching in its casing, he finally sat up and scooped her into his arms. Absentmindedly rocking her, he got up and retrieved a cube of her special energon from the cooler it was sent in. With his teeth, he ripped off the lid and returned to the bed. 

Ravage sat next to him, tail curled over his pedes, and tilted his helm curiously. “You aren’t going to feed her right from the cube, are you?” he asked. 

Megatron sent him an incredulous look. “What else?”

The mechanimal clicked his teeth together, thinking. While Megatron struggled to keep the energon from flying across the room, he disappeared. Half a spilled cube later, he came back with an empty, thin-necked bottle and a cloth. Megatron was in the middle of arguing with the sparkling, his charms and persuasion failing to shut her up. He was tempted to knock down Ultra Magnus’ door and hand her over; he’d change her name real quick. 

“Please tell me you have a solution,” Megatron grumbled. 

Ravage dropped the bottle and cloth on the berth and curled up by the foot of it. “Shouldn’t you know what to do?” he huffed. “Put energon in the bottle and wrap the cloth around the top. More like a fuel line.”

Megatron wasn’t about to question how Ravage knew that, not when he was covered in energon and struggling to keep his patience with the wailing sparkling under wraps. He fixed up the bottle, almost dropped the rest of the energon cube on the bitlet, but managed to do as his old friend instructed. The bottle, he found, was easier to hold, and the sparkling latched onto the end. She suckled eagerly, servos grappling for the bottle. 

His spark constricted as he watched her eat, as if the coding was punishing him for not producing energon naturally, like her carrier would have. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like, feeding the sparkling from a tube in his chest, open and vulnerable, but only to her. And she wouldn’t care, she’d bask in the feeble warmth of his spark and happily lap up her meal. 

She fell asleep not long after she polished off the last of the formula, the crest of her helm nestled against the curve of Megatron’s hip. His thumb rubbed idle circles on her back while he situated himself on the berth. When he lay on his side, he didn’t bother barricading himself from her contact-craved frame. She curled into the divot of his chassis, closest to his spark, and the warmth made him sigh. 

Maybe the flowers wouldn’t return.


	7. Work and Tickles

Ravage quickly made a habit of joining Megatron on his shifts in the bridge. He claimed it was because he was tired of slinking around the ship in search of something to do. Everyone knew it was because he took pride in babysitting the sparkling. It was the third day in a row that Megatron was able to surrender the bitlet to Ravage and actually get some work done.

The door was always closed, and Rung brought a couple of down-filled pillows and a rug to make the office more suitable for a child. At first, Megatron waved off the gifts, but the sparkling was stubborn and her word was the last. If she wanted the pillows, she’d get the pillows. Even if it meant screaming her head off for hours on end. Such a fussy little thing.

At the moment, Megatron was diligently reading the bi-weekly systems report for the Lost Light. Nothing out of the ordinary, except a miniscule increase in energon intake. Megatron glanced over his desk, in front of which the bitlet was napping against Ravage. The mechanimal’s sleek black helm rested on her lap and she was sucking on her thumb. Megatron rubbed a crick in his neck and leaned back. He winced when the chair creaked, but neither Ravage nor the kid moved. 

There was a knock at the door and he winced again. Instead of letting whoever it was in to witness his child-proofed and bright pillow covered office, he got up, carefully stepped over the sleeping mound on the floor, and opened the door. He scowled down at Rodimus as he closed the door behind him.

“What?” he grumbled. 

The Prime cocked his helm and crossed his arms defiantly. “Optimus is on call.”

That slapped some life into him. “Why?”

“He knows about the sparkling.” Rodimus wouldn’t meet his optics. “He insists on talking to you.”

Megatron pinched the bridge of his nose to try and ease the forming migraine. “Of course.” He made sure his office door was locked before he followed Rodimus to the monitor where Optimus was waiting on the screen, worlds away.

The old mech looked as exhausted as Megatron felt. He’d be a fool if he didn’t recognize the signs of wear and vulnerability on his old enemy’s face. The drawn line of his mouth, the dark mesh at the corner of his optics. 

“Megatron,” he started. 

“Optimus.” How odd was it to address this mech with niceties, when once Megatron relished the thought of his spilt energon on his servos. “You are still on Earth?”

“Yes.”

That gave him a bit of relief. Relief he didn’t realize he was hoping for. “And you are certainly in no position to return any time soon.”

Optimus squinted through the monitor. “If need be, I will return.” He paused. “Ratchet has informed me of your. . . situation. What do you plan to do?” The cold criticism in his voice was plain. 

Megatron clenched his fists behind his back. “What I have been doing. Ratchet assured me that there is no alternative, and I will accept responsibility for my actions.” 

The other mech thought for a while, optics staring imploringly into the monitor. He seemed to be considering his options, but what could he really do? Order Megatron and the sparkling back to Cybertron and risk their unlawful deaths, or let them stay on the Lost Light where they’ve been accepted, more or less, and the risk of fatality is significantly lower?

Optimus finally sighed. “Very well. I will be expecting constant reports on her health. This sparkling is one of only a handful that have been reproduced purely biologically. Although the anomaly is occurring more frequently, it was thought extinct with the war. If this is an indicator of otherwise. . .”

“Then there is hope for our race,” Megatron finished. He tried to ignore the guilt and the sharp ache in his spark. Would they need this hope if not for him and his actions, his war? He cleared his throat. “I assure you, Optimus Prime, that I will not allow any damage to come to this sparkling.”

“I trust you will stay true to your words,” Optimus said. The call ended, the monitor went black, and the sparkling’s cries drew Megatron back to the solitude of his office. 

Ratchet hummed as he inspected the sparkling’s arm. He had carefully removed the cast and was testing flexibility and range of the mangled limb. Megatron watched with hawk eyes, even though he knew, deep down, that Ratchet would never do anything to harm her. It’d be in direct violation of the medic code and his morals. And if there was one thing Ratchet was most stubborn about, it was his morals. Megatron always appreciated that, regardless of any inconveniences it caused him in the past. 

“Let’s see,” Ratchet mumbled, lifting the sparkling’s arm. She giggled when his fingers brushed her underarm. “Aha!” He launched his attack and she collapsed in a fit of blubbering laughs and frantic hiccups.

Megatron felt out of place, like he shouldn’t be witnessing this side of Ratchet. It was. . . strange, to say the least, watching the cynical, no-joke medic chuckle and tickle away. It almost felt like a strange fever dream, but the laughs echoing in the medibay warmed his spark in a way no dream ever did. Perhaps there was more to appreciate about the sparkling’s presence than he originally thought. 

Ratchet seemed to remember that he wasn’t alone with his miniature patient and cleared his throat. He picked up the still-squealing bitlet and carried her back to her make-shift carrier. While they talked, she clung to Ratchet, servos wrapped tightly around his thumb. 

“Is she healing?” Megatron asked. 

“Exceptionally.” Ratchet returned to his typical self, despite the chirping bundle in his arms. “Her arm has mended, but it will be permanently disfigured. That, according to scans, she was born with though. I imagine it had something to do with a difficult birth.” 

Megatron didn’t feel sick when he looked at the sparkling’s knobby and twisted arm, he felt pride. It welled in his throat and he resisted the urge of snatching her from Ratchet and hugging her as tight as her little body could handle. Instead, he said, “She is strong, for such a vulnerable thing.”

Ratchet squinted at him, lips pinched. “Strong, yeah. Vulnerable, no. I’d say she’s the most guarded she’ll ever be on this damn ship.”

No one could argue with that. And no one would dare challenge it, they thought.


	8. Crash Landing

They barely had time to react, barrelling towards an uncharted planet, missing an engine and half of the brig. Alarms blaring, mechs shouting, Ultra Magnus and Megatron and Rodimus ordering everyone on the bridge to man their stations and brace for impact. Megatron was only half aware that he was clutching a wailing sparkling to his chassis, shielding her as best he could, as he commanded the crew. It only took ten minutes for whoever was attacking to completely disable their ship, but they weren’t coming under fire as they crashed. A hum of electricity and expectance coursed through his veins, and his mind raced. He grappled for answers as they hit the ground. The whole ship shuddered from the impact and the lights flickered and blew out. Metal was folding in around them with a horrible screech, the scream of dead metal on living, and they were thrown about like pebbles in a jar. Megatron curled his entire body around the sparkling, and Ultra Magnus did the same, and together they formed the only hope the sparkling knew. The only barrier she had against what they all knew was coming. 

When the ship finally stopped hurtling forward, she let loose a low, eery groan of vulnerable metal and strutless beams. Outside, there were shouts, battle cries, and blaster shots. The shots, for the most part, pinged against the ship. With an urgency no one could truly describe, the crew rose, battle protocol engaged, and braced themselves. More and more injured but functional crew members were joining the group in the bridge and they huddled around their leaders, cursing and waiting. Ultra Magnus helped Megatron up and they both checked briefly to make sure the sparkling was fine. She was covered in her own tears and paint chips from Megatron’s armor, but safe. 

“Who shot us down?” Skids demanded. Others echoed his question. More, like Whirl, cursed their nameless, strutless assailants and fidgeted with anticipation. 

The bridge was a mess, a cacophony of furious voices, anxious voices, even gleeful voices. But Rodimus could always be louder. He stood on a destroyed console and commanded attention when he shouted above the rest.

“Whoever is out there,” he started, “Is about to get the aft beating of their life! Who’s with me?”

The crew cheered, fists thrown in the air. 

Ultra Magnus called, “We have no idea who they are or what their intentions are! We should consider—”

“They’re armed and, assuming they have us surrounded, we’ve got no choice but to attack head-on.” Rodimus nodded towards Megatron. “And, no matter what, we make sure that sparkling stays safe. Not so much as a scratch!”

A determined group of mechs, Whirl at the head, circled Megatron and his charge. Magnus also stayed close, even once the rest of the crew started pouring out onto the battlefield. They were immediately met with shots, and a grenade was thrown into the hull of the ship. Whirl, with impeccable aim, kicked the explosive out of the ship and back towards the enemy. It blew up in the sky while Megatron and the sparkling were being ushered out of the carcass that was the Lost Light. Surrounded on all sides by fiercely determined bodyguards, he couldn’t get a good look at the enemy. The terrain was dry and dead and every small scuffle was kicking up dust. 

Ultra Magnus guided the entourage toward a decrepit building a few klicks away from the ship. Megatron ducked his helm and barricaded the sparkling between his chest plates and his arms. He ran at pace with the others, who were taking shots and grunting from impacts and fending off anyone close enough. There was nothing new to the sounds of the battlefield; these were the sounds Megatron was most familiar with. But being sheltered from the fight, that irked him, settled oddly on his nerves, like oil on protoform. Battle protocols roared in his processor, but he denied them and focused on matching his steps to Magnus’. 

When they reached the mud frame of what was left of a house, Megatron crouched in the corner, his back to the wall so he could face the open side of the structure. Now, he allowed his fusion cannon to power up but didn’t stop covering the sparkling. She writhed in his hold, screaming for some comfort he couldn’t give her, and his tanks sank when he remembered the first time he heard gunshots. Their guards surrounded the pathetic structure and were firing their weapons constantly. After centuries of war, the loud pop and snap of energy blasters didn’t bother him, but he could only imagine the sparkling’s agony. 

Ultra Magnus popped around the wall and hunched down, clutching his blaster. “Decepticons!” He shouted to be heard over the gunfire. “Loyalists, they’ve come for the sparkling!”

“How did they know?” Megatron shouted back. 

Magnus shrugged and returned to fighting. How had they got here, Megatron wondered. Of course, he knew the answer, but it didn’t matter. It did, but it didn’t. Since his fall, battle always fritzed his processor. Maybe it was the fool’s energon or maybe it was the looming inevitability of death that made him reflect, made him open his arms just enough to see leaking blue optics and whisper, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry. He never even apologized for the war, for the terror he caused and insinuated, but he would to a new life who knew nothing of his atrocities? He bowed his helm and blocked her from the world again. She continued to sob, and it was all he could do not to join her. Apologizing  _ and  _ crying. Ravage would have a fit. 

The enemy was advancing, that much Megatron could tell. When Autobot shots became desperate and Whirl started doing flips, he knew. By then, most of the crew had been forced back and were forming a blockade of bodies between the sparkling and the Decepticon loyalists. Megatron helped as much as he could, shooting from the cover whenever a Con got past the others, which was rare to say the least. But when they got smart and started chucking grenades, everyone scattered. Megatron darted across the battlefield to another windblown pile of bones or wooden beams. 

It wasn’t until the planet’s suns set and the world was basked in navy blue that the fighting stopped. Megatron sagged against his cover when Ultra Magnus came to let him know. Magnus was in a daze of his own, but he knelt to make sure both the ex-warlord and the sparkling were okay. Megatron set her on the ground and she crawled over to Magnus. Neither realized there was spilt energon on his pede until she touched the wet spot and her hands were covered. Her small, colorless hands. Her innocent, unmarred hands. Megatron stared at the tainted energon, fighting the bile in his throat. She should never have known the feeling of someone else’s energon on her. And now, she smeared it everywhere. She had no idea what she was playing with; it looked like her food. Ultra Magnus purged his tanks and Megatron choked on suppressed sobs. 


	9. Hurt

While Magnus swiped the back of his servo against his mouth, the sparkling started to convulse. It started as just a twitch but hurtled into full-frame jolts. Megatron lurched forward and Magnus did the same. In the distance, someone screamed for Ratchet. The two massive mechs did their best to be patient, but not a minute passed and they were bolting across the battlefield, shouldering their way through groups of survivors until they collided with the medic. The sparkling’s lips and servos quickly turned a bluish hue and moisture clung to her tiny frame. Megatron choked on terror, as bitter as straight magnesium, and cradled her while Ratchet worked in a flurry of servos, checking her vitals and frowning. Scoffing. Biting the inside of his cheeks. 

Megatron struggled to keep the frenzied state of his mind just that. Ratchet barked something about getting to a medibay and they were running back to the ship, weaving through half-demolished halls and leaping over debris. The bitlet was stock still, frozen in Megatron’s grasp. He tried to pretend she was awake and screaming again. Anything but silence. 

In the mostly intact medibay, the kid was quickly put on an energon drip and monitors beeped in lieu with her vitals. Megatron paced, a hunched stalking really, up and down the hall, checked on Ratchet’s progress, and stalked back into the shadows. Ultra Magnus left soon after Velocity showed up. Megatron didn’t stop pacing. The medics were muttering about shock and sensory overload and delayed reactions and fried synapses and it was all too much and he couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop struggling for breath, couldn’t stop returning and leaving, returning and leaving, but he never went far. Wherever he paced to, he was in hearing range if the sparkling started crying.  _ When  _ she started crying. 

He ached with rage and sorrow and fear, but there was no one left to attack and no use in blame. If he were to blame anyone, it would have to be himself, and he didn’t want to confront that. Not yet. 

“Shizu,” Megatron whispered, a low plea. He was hunched over her much-too-large medical berth, rasping her name while he waited for Ratchet to return. He still hadn’t gotten any explanations, and he was desperate for them. But the medics had the aftermath of a battle to attend to and Shizu’s condition was stable, for what little comfort that gave Megatron. 

In those early hours, while the crew recovered and started to repair the ship, First Aid popped in and out of the medibay, briefly checking on Shizu, but didn’t mutter a word. The silence began to claw its way into Megatron’s nerves and he distracted himself by worrying about Ravage and certain crew members he’d grown fond of. He recited half-formed lines of poetry and bounced his leg anxiously. For hours, he was alone with the motionless body of his charge. He imagined what would happen if she died, but the thought was too strangling to consider. Of course there would be uproar, but nothing louder than Megatron’s anguish. That, too, he wasn’t ready to deal with. So he sat in vigil, waiting for the moment he could smile again. 

When Ratchet finally returned, it was with full arms. Without a word to Megatron, he carefully deposited countless vials of bright liquids at the foot of Shizu’s berth. His frame creaked loudly and he hissed through clenched dentae as he eased himself into the chair opposite Megatron. He waved his hand half-heartedly, motioning to nothing in particular, but said nothing.

Megatron shifted in his seat, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his thighs. “Doctor?” Ratchet fixed him with a stern side-eye. Or maybe it was just exhaustion that made him look more bitter than usual. “I need to know,” Megatron persisted. 

Ratchet sighed defeat and tension. “The chances of fatality are low,” he started. “She had a delayed reaction to overflow of sensory input of the battlefield. In reaction to the shock, her frame forced stasis.”

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Megatron muttered. 

“But it did,” Ratchet grumbled. “It happened, but loyalties are strong as ever. You should know that.” He motioned to the small vials at the end of the bed. “Innermost energon. There’s more, someone will drop it off, and by the end of the day, there won’t be a single mech on this ship that hasn’t offered this kid their energon.”

Megatron stared at the vials, bewildered and trembling. The whole ship. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it, but he could wrap his servo around Shizu’s. In a way, that was what the others were doing by offering a piece of their lives for this little, helpless being. His spark ached and throbbed with indescribable emotion and a word came to mind from his days on Earth. Family. He used to consider it a lucrative term, but now he rolled it around his tongue. Was this what family looked like? Everyone in unity, bonded by more than blood, with all the fiercely devoted aunts and uncles, and no one would ever hurt her. Megatron smiled down at Shizu, his spark filling with pride and something not much different than happiness. He was proud to be attached to this lump of metal, proud that she was safe, proud that she would never be alone. Ignoring Ratchet’s snort, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to Shizu’s warm forehelm. 

Together, they remained in vigil, and after an hour or so, Ratchet nodded off in his chair. Not long after, Ravage slunk in and curled around Shizu on the medical berth. He watched Megatron wearily, and finally muttered something under his breath.

Megatron glanced up. “What do you have to say, Ravage?” Exhaustion weighed his voice down and his already low vibrato left an echoing hum in the empty room. 

“I heard you use the name Ultra Magnus gave her.”

“She deserves a name.”

Ravage squinted at him. “Does that mea—”

Megatron inhaled and closed his optics. On the exhale, he said, “It means nothing. My trial will still come, and I will still go. She will stay.” He opened his optics and looked to the vials of energon littering the room. “She will be safe.”

“You can’t deny attachment.”

“I never did,” Megatron said. “But the final penance I can pay for my crimes is my life, Ravage. I’m ready. I’m too old to start again, and Shizu should not and will not meet my fate.”

“You’re sad and old and she needs you.”

“The original carrier’s coding will transfer from my corpse to another. She will continue on as if nothing has changed. After all, sparklings don’t understand death.” It pained him to say it, but he knew it was true. As much as he loved her, she was lasting and he was temporary. No, it didn’t render their connection obsolete, only fleeting. 

Ravage snarled, baring deadly fangs. “But don’t they? You can’t tell me she understands that you aren’t her carrier, not really. She knows, and will know, when you are gone because her parents left and they didn’t come back either.” He curled his frame tighter around Shizu, as if protecting her from Megatron’s foolishness. 


	10. New Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short, I know, but have some cuteness.

Megatron refused to leave the medibay. He wasn’t avoiding the physical labor of setting up camp on the planet, or leading. If Shizu weren’t still relying on machines to keep her steady, if she just woke up, he would work. But three days passed and nothing changed. Sometimes, when nightmares woke him from a rare doze, he caught a flash of blue before nodding off again. The first time this happened, Megatron forced himself to stay awake just long enough to make sure Shizu’s visitor was friendly. Although it had shocked him that it was Whirl, he was comforted when he’d heard the helicopter mutter;

“You’re too good for this fucking world, squirt.”

Now when he woke and saw blue, he didn’t fight his frames dire need for more rest and stayed slumped in his chair. In the days, when he was certain that not a soul was around, Megatron recited poetry to Shizu, glancing up every few seconds in case she reacted. She didn’t. 

Her waking was gradual, and it was like watching the allspark revive a cold Bot. Megatron did his best to coax her through reemergence into their chaotic world, and the medics kept a close eye on her the whole time. It took two days before she could open her mouth and cry. Finally, finally cry. Sob and scream and flail her arms, and all Megatron could do was hold her. He knew she was in pain, Ratchet had told him as much, but she was alive; recovering. 

It took two more days before all the tubes and wires and needles could be removed, and Shizu wriggled on her giant bed, grabbing greedily at the bottle Megatron offered her. He smiled, not minding the mess she made. He would clean her messes a thousand times over if it meant she was healthy. Of course, the shock and coma affected her, and the most noticeable physical trauma was to her audials. Ratchet labeled it damage from noise exposure. 

Regardless, Megatron talked to her whenever they were alone. It started as a way of giving thanks but quickly evolved into a confession. He paced around the room as he rocked Shizu in his arms and she smiled and giggled and spoke back as he poured every sin he committed onto her def ears. Every sin that meant she should hate him, be scared of him, grow up and detest him. He sighed and ended his confession by saying, “No one wants to know the atrocities we are capable of. We live in arrogant naivety, convincing ourselves that we are good, that we always have been and always will be good. We are tainted,  _ I _ am tainted and dark and. . .”

Shizu blinked up at him with innocent blue eyes and smiles, flashing her sharp baby dentae. “Mea,” she babbled. She reached for his face and he bent so she could smack her chubby hands on either side of his helm. “Mea, Mea!” 

Megatron shook his helm, not sure if this weight crushing his spark was exhaustion or fear. “No,” he said. “Megatron. Meg-a-tron.”

She smacked his helm and stuck her tongue out. “Mea!” She broke off into giggles.

“Megatron. Say it. Say Megatron.” Logically, he knew she wasn’t developed enough to say his name properly, but that didn’t stop him from trying. “I can’t have you running around calling me something like  _ Mea _ .” He faked a scoff when she kept babbling his new nickname. “Imagine if the crew heard you. I’d never live it down.” But at the same time, he didn’t want to live it down, and he wanted to carry the sound of her forming voice with him to his grave. 


	11. Peace

With Shizu officially released from the medibay, she and Megatron moved to the modest temporary camp the crew had set up outside. Emergency tents were set up in a tight circle, and of course they were put in the middle. Ultra Magnus’ tent was on their left and Whirl’s on the right. It didn’t take long to get situated, and although Megatron loathed sleeping on the dirt, Shizu slept soundly on the mound of his chassis. Rain from the organic planet’s atmosphere pinged off the tent and lulled both warlord and child to sleep. 

Megatron wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he woke up to Shizu’s cries. She’d fallen from his chest so he scooped her back up and cradled her there. Next door, Magnus was listening to music, low, but the peaceful hum and high voices leaked through the thin tent walls. Megatron hushed Shizu and prayed to whatever was left to pray to that she wasn’t having nightmares of her first battle. He’d only be lying to himself if he called it her last. 

He closed his optics and Shizu clung to his servo, suckling on his thumb. Magnus’ music left Megatron surprisingly content and he was blissful with the warm bundle tucked against his chassis. He thought, just for a moment, that he could live with this. Live the rest of his days with an inkling of peace. Whether or not he deserved that ending was an entirely different story. But Shizu deserved it, and if she didn’t get it, Megatron would haunt every damn mech on the Lost Light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading! I know the last two chapters are pretty light, but I hope you enjoyed them either way.


End file.
